Even as she spoke the words, and as though in answer to the question he had asked, a faint smell of burning filled the air of the room, and through one of the chinks, like a little gray snake, a wreath of smoke coiled upward, clinging to the woodwork.

"So that's what they were doing!" cried Floyd. "They have fired the house."

Through every chink and crevice a curl of smoke was licking upward, and now came the sharp, crackling sound of brushwood burning and the snap and hiss of sticks blazing alight.

The air of the room was already turned to a gray haze of smoke, smoke that made the eyes smart, the smoke of burning hibiscus and poison oak and bay cedar bush, choking and suffocating fumes, followed now by flames as the wretches outside flung coconut shells on the fire, shells that blazed like flare lamps once ignited.

"The place will burn like a torch," said Floyd, "once the scantling gets alight. Listen! What's that above? They have got on the roof; they are lighting it. We must quit and make a dash for the dinghy. It's our only chance. Wait!"

He rushed into the smaller room, and returned with[Pg 192] something in his hands. It was the tin box holding the pearls.

He opened it, emptied the contents wrapped in cotton wool, and filled his pockets.

"I'm not going to leave these behind," said he, speaking as if to himself. Then to Isbel: "Take a revolver and this package of ammunition. I'll take the other and a rifle. Unbar the door and run first. Don't stop to fire unless you can't help. Hark! What's that?"

A sound like a sharp clap of thunder shook the air and was followed by a yell from the grove behind the house and from the beach on either side.

"Open the door!" said Floyd.

Isbel undid the bars, and flung the door wide. Instantly the draft settling from the grove filled the place with volumes of smoke.

"Now," said Floyd, "run!"

They dashed out of the house, across the beach, running, half blind with the effects of the smoke. They had expected a flight of spears. They found instead an empty beach, full dawn, and a reef over which the last of their assailants were scrambling.

A great white cloud filled the break of the reef. It was the Southern Cross coming in with a fair wind and a flooding tide.

The first rays of the sun were on her topsails, which the wind scarcely filled. The water under her was still violet with night. White gulls, rose-colored gulls, golden gulls, as the sunrise took them, were flocking and screaming in the pale sapphire above her, schooner, gulls, lagoon, and sky making a picture more lovely than a dream.

[Pg 193]As she cleared the reef entrance and rounded to her anchorage, the wind spilling out of her sails, a plume of smoke broke from her, and again the report of a gun shook the island.

As it died away the splash of the anchor was followed by a roar of the chain through the hawse pipe, and the Southern Cross, her long, long journey over, lay at her moorings swinging to the incoming tide.

Isbel turned to Floyd and clung to him, weeping. All her courage had suddenly vanished now that there was no need for it.

Floyd, holding her tight in his arms, kissed her black, perfumed hair. The flower had fallen, but a trace of its scent remained.

It was the moment of his life, and then she drew away from him, cast one dark glance obliquely up at him, and stood with her breast heaving and both hands shading her eyes.

She was looking over the water in the direction of the Southern Cross.

The schooner was lowering a boat. It was the whaleboat, and Floyd saw the men tumbling into her, followed by a white-clad figure—Schumer.

Even at that distance he recognized Schumer. Following Schumer came another white-clad figure, evidently a European.

Besides the two white men there were twelve hands in the boat, fourteen in all, and as she approached rapidly, urged by the long ash sweeps, Floyd saw the rifles with which the men were armed, the barrels showing as they rested, muzzle upward, by the seats.

As the boat came ashore Schumer, from his place in the stern sheets, waved his hand to Floyd. Then the[Pg 194] fellows, jumping out, beached the boat, and Schumer, following them, set foot on the sand.

He did not waste words.

He had seen the whole business at a glance, and he had brought canvas buckets. Dense columns of smoke were rising from the back part of the house, but the roof had fortunately not caught alight. The crew had their orders, and in a moment they were filling the buckets and carrying them up to the grove while Schumer, Floyd, and the newcomer helped and superintended.

The mutineers had piled stacks of underwood, sticks, and all the rubbish they could find against the house wall. The stuff was burning with more smoke than flame, and the fire had fortunately taken no considerable hold on the building. They kicked the rubbish aside, flung water on the wall, and in twenty minutes or so the situation was saved.

Isbel had been posted by Schumer as a lookout in case the enemy should return. She had not contented herself by standing by as a watch, but had gone as far as the grove end, from where the reef could be seen up to the pierhead. She had seen nothing. The whole crowd of the enemy, in fact, had scattered back to the fishing camp by the road they had come the night before, and Schumer, standing now on the beach, could see them through his glass congregated about the tents.

Then he turned to Floyd. "Well," said he, "you seem to have had a lively time. What was the bother?"

Floyd explained in a few words, and, Isbel not being by, told of the trouble with Sru.

[Pg 195]"He was plotting mischief all the time," said Floyd, "and this is the result."

"Well," said Schumer, "we will deal with the gentleman all in good time. What luck have you had with the pearls?"

Floyd told.

Taking off his coat, and laying it on the sands, he began to remove the pearls, in their casings of cotton wool, from the pockets. He explained why he had placed them there, and, as he went on with the work, Schumer and the stranger, standing by, looked on.

Schumer up to this had been too busy to introduce the newcomer. He did so now.

"This is Captain Hakluyt," said he. "He's in this venture, as I will explain to you afterward. His firm owns the Southern Cross."

Floyd looked up, and nodded to Hakluyt.

The new man's face was not a certificate of character. There are faces that repel at first sight, and Hakluyt's was one of them.

He had the appearance, not so much of a man who was ill, but of a man who never enjoyed good health. An?mic looking despite his exposure to sun and wind, he seemed unable to bear either the full light of the sun or a full gaze. He was continually blinking, and to Floyd in that moment he suggested vividly the idea of a sick owl.

It was the curve of the nose and the blinking of the eyelids that produced this impression. The eyes themselves were not at all owllike, being small and set close together.

The whole figure of the man matched his face, slight and mean, with shoulders sloping like the shoulders of[Pg 196] a champagne bottle. It was a figure that no tailor could improve.

His hands, as he stood with the thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, showed lean and clawlike, birdlike. Birdlike is the term best suited for the whole man; light, restless, peering, and without grace, for it is a fact that the animal and the bird translated into human terms lose both grace and nobility. Man standing or falling by his approach or recession to the type, man.

As Floyd looked up from his work he took in Hakluyt's appearance fully for the first time, and the idea that this man was the new partner in their concern filled him with repulsion and uneasiness.

He had been on the point of exposing the pearls triumphantly to view, but in a flash he altered his decision, and, asking them to wait for a moment, left his work and ran up to the house for the tin cash box from which he had taken them.

He placed it on the sand, and packing in the precious cotton-wool-covered parcels, closed the lid and handed it to Schumer.

"We can examine them afterward," said he. "Keep them for the present. They are not a bad lot, but they might be better."

"We'll put them in the house," replied Schumer. "I've got a safe on board; brought it from Sydney, but I can't get it ashore till to-morrow. Meanwhile they'll be all right in the house. Well, Hakluyt, what do you think of the island?"

Hakluyt looked about him as though taking stock of the place for the first time.

[Pg 197]"It is not so bad," said he. "It is a fair bit of a lagoon, but it might be bigger."

"Oh, it will be big enough for us," replied Schumer, with a laugh. "Come up to the house with me, Floyd, till I put this stuff away. I want to have a talk with you."

They left Hakluyt, and walked up to the house.

"I say," said Floyd, "if that's our new man I don't like the look of him."

Schumer laughed.

"He's not a beauty," said he, "but he's the best I could find. He's Hakluyt & Son. He's the son; the father's dead. He's in a good way of business as a shipowner and ship's chandler in Sydney. He has got the money and the means to help us. I have drawn up a contract with him; he gets a third share."

"A third share. That means that the total profits will be divided into three parts. One for you, one for me, and one for Hakluyt."

"Just so," said Schumer, "and you pay me for the trade goods we salved from the Tonga."

"Of course," said Floyd, "but it seems to me that Hakluyt ought to stand in with me and pay something."

"I suggested that, but he refused. He would only come into the deal on condition that he got a third share of the profits without deduction."

Floyd felt inclined to grumble at this. Hakluyt would have the benefit of those goods or what was left of them, but he said nothing. He wanted explanation on another point.

"How about the Southern Cross?" said he.

"In what way?"

[Pg 198]"Well, we salved her, didn't we, or as good as salved her? Hakluyt ought to pay for that."

"It was this way," replied Schumer.............